“Black Lives Matter” Movement Heather Mac Donald Author, the War on Cops

A PUBLICATION OF HILLSDALE COLLEGE

ImpOVERr 3,400,000imi READERS MONTHLYs April 2016 • Volume 45, Number 4

The Danger of the “Black Lives Matter” Movement Heather Mac Donald Author, The War on Cops

HEATHER MAC DONALD is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. She earned a B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. in English from Cambridge University, and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. She writes for several newspapers and journals, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The New Criterion, and Public Interest, and is the author of three books, including Are Cops Racist? and The War on Cops: How The New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe (forthcoming June 2016).

The following is adapted from a speech delivered on April 27, 2016, at Hillsdale College’s Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C., as part of the AWC Family Foundation Lecture Series.

For almost two years, a protest movement known as “Black Lives Matter” has convulsed the nation. Triggered by the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014, the Black Lives Matter movement holds that racist police officers are the greatest threat facing young black men today. This belief has triggered riots, “die-ins,” the murder and attempted murder of police officers, a campaign to eliminate traditional grand jury proceedings when police use lethal force, and a presidential task force on policing. Even though the U.S. Justice Department has resoundingly disproven the lie that a pacific Michael Brown was shot in cold blood while trying to surrender, Brown is still

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venerated as a martyr. And now police offi- the issue of policing, crime, and race that cers are backing off of proactive policing in remains a taboo topic. The problem of the face of the relentless venom directed at black-on-black crime is an uncomfortable them on the street and in the media. As a truth, but unless we acknowledge it, we result, violent crime is on the rise. won’t get very far in understanding pat- The need is urgent, therefore, to terns of policing. examine the Black Lives Matter movement’s central thesis—that police pose * * * the greatest threat to young black men. I propose two counter hypotheses: first, Every year, approximately 6,000 that there is no government agency more blacks are murdered. This is a number dedicated to the idea that black lives greater than white and Hispanic homi- matter than the police; and second, that cide victims combined, even though we have been talking obsessively about blacks are only 13 percent of the national alleged police racism over the last 20 population. Blacks are killed at six times years in order to avoid talking about a far the rate of whites and Hispanics com- larger problem—black-on-black crime. bined. In Los Angeles, blacks between Let’s be clear at the outset: police the ages of 20 and 24 die at a rate 20 to 30 have an indefeasible obligation to treat times the national mean. Who is killing everyone with courtesy and respect, and them? Not the police, and not white civil- to act within the confines of the law. Too ians, but other blacks. The astronomical often, officers develop a hardened, obnox- black death-by-homicide rate is a func- ious attitude. It is also true that being tion of the black crime rate. Black males stopped when you are innocent of any between the ages of 14 and 17 commit wrongdoing is infuriating, humiliating, homicide at ten times the rate of white and sometimes ter- and Hispanic male rifying. And needless teens combined. Blacks −´ to say, every unjusti- Imprimis (im-pri-mis), of all ages commit [Latin]: in the first place fied police shooting homicide at eight times of an unarmed civil- EDITOR the rate of whites and Douglas A. Jeffrey ian is a stomach- DEPUTY EDITORS Hispanics combined, churning tragedy. Matthew D. Bell and at eleven times the Timothy W. Caspar Given the his- COPY EDITOR rate of whites alone. tory of racism in this Monica VanDerWeide The police could ART DIRECTOR country and the com- Arthur Donley end all lethal uses plicity of the police MARKETING DIRECTOR of force tomorrow in that history, police William Gray and it would have at PRODUCTION MANAGER shootings of black Lucinda Grimm most a trivial effect men are particularly CIRCULATION MANAGER on the black death- and understandably Wanda Oxenger by-homicide rate. STAFF ASSISTANTS fraught. That history Robin Curtis The nation’s police Kim Ellsworth informs how many Kathy Smith killed 987 civilians people view the police. Mary Jo Von Ewegen in 2015, according to

But however intoler- Copyright © 2016 Hillsdale College a database compiled able and inexcusable The opinions expressed in Imprimis are not by The Washington necessarily the views of Hillsdale College. every act of police Permission to reprint in whole or in part is Post. Whites were 50 brutality is, and while hereby granted, provided the following credit percent—or 493—of line is used: “Reprinted by permission from we need to make sure Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.” those victims, and that the police are SUBSCRIPTION FREE UPON REQUEST. blacks were 26 per- properly trained in ISSN 0277-8432 cent—or 258. Most of Imprimis trademark registered in U.S. the Constitution and Patent and Trademark Office #1563325. those victims of police in courtesy, there is a shootings, white and larger reality behind black, were armed or 2

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otherwise threatening the officer with to minority neighborhoods looking for potentially lethal force. minority suspects. The black violent crime rate would Officers hope against hope that they actually predict that more than 26 per- will receive descriptions of white shoot- cent of police victims would be black. ing suspects, but it almost never hap- Officer use of force will occur where the pens. This incidence of crime means police interact most often with violent that innocent black men have a much criminals, armed suspects, and those higher chance than innocent white men resisting arrest, and that is in black neigh- of being stopped by the police because borhoods. In America’s 75 largest coun- they match the description of a suspect. ties in 2009, for example, blacks consti- This is not something the police choose. tuted 62 percent of all robbery defendants, It is a reality forced on them by the 57 percent of all murder defendants, 45 facts of crime. percent of all assault defendants—but The geographic disparities are also only 15 percent of the population. huge. In Brownsville, Brooklyn, the Moreover, 40 percent of all cop kill- per capita shooting rate is 81 times ers have been black over the last decade. higher than in nearby Bay Ridge, And a larger proportion of white and Brooklyn—the first neighborhood pre- Hispanic homicide deaths are a result dominantly black, the second neighbor- of police killings than black homicide hood predominantly white and Asian. deaths—but don’t expect to hear that As a result, police presence and use of from the media or from the political proactive tactics are much higher in enablers of the Black Lives Matter move- Brownsville than in Bay Ridge. Every ment. Twelve percent of all white and time there is a shooting, the police will Hispanic homicide victims are killed flood the area looking to make stops by police officers, compared to four in order to avert a retaliatory shooting. percent of all black homicide victims. They are in Brownsville not because of If we’re going to have a “Lives Matter” racism, but because they want to provide anti-police movement, it would be protection to its many law-abiding resi- more appropriately named “White and dents who deserve safety. Hispanic Lives Matter.” Standard anti-cop ideology, whether * * * emanating from the ACLU or the acad- emy, holds that law enforcement actions Who are some of the victims of are racist if they don’t mirror popula- elevated urban crime? On March 11, tion data. New York City illustrates why 2015, as protesters were once again that expectation is so misguided. Blacks converging on the Ferguson police head- make up 23 percent of New York City’s quarters demanding the resignation of population, but they commit 75 percent the entire department, a six-year-old of all shootings, 70 percent of all robber- boy named Marcus Johnson was killed ies, and 66 percent of all violent crime, a few miles away in a St. Louis park, the according to victims and witnesses. Add victim of a drive-by shooting. No one Hispanic shootings and you account for protested his killing. Al Sharpton did 98 percent of all illegal gunfire in the not demand a federal investigation. Few city. Whites are 33 percent of the city’s people outside of his immediate com- population, but they commit fewer than munity know his name. two percent of all shootings, four per- Ten children under the age of ten cent of all robberies, and five percent of were killed in Baltimore last year. In all violent crime. These disparities mean Cleveland, three children five and that virtually every time the police younger were killed in September. in New York are called out on a gun A seven-year-old boy was killed in run—meaning that someone has just Chicago over the Fourth of July weekend been shot—they are being summoned by a bullet intended for his father. In 3

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November, a nine-year-old in Chicago weekly accountability sessions came to was lured into an alley and killed by be known as Compstat. They were his father’s gang enemies; the father ruthless, high tension affairs. If a com- refused to cooperate with the police. In mander was not fully informed about August, a nine-year-old girl was doing every local crime outbreak and ready her homework on her mother’s bed in with a strategy to combat it, his career Ferguson when a bullet fired into the was in jeopardy. house killed her. In Cincinnati in July, a Compstat created a sense of urgency four-year-old girl was shot in the head about fighting crime that has never left and a six-year-old girl was left paralyzed the NYPD. For decades, the rap against and partially blind from two separate the police was that they ignored crime drive-by shootings. This mindless in minority neighborhoods. Compstat violence seems almost to be regarded keeps New York commanders focused as normal, given the lack of attention like a laser beam on where people are it receives from the same people who being victimized most, and that is in would be out in droves if any of these minority communities. Compstat spread had been police shootings. As horrific nationwide. Departments across the as such stories are, crime rates were country now send officers to emerging much higher 20 years ago. In New York crime hot spots to try to interrupt crimi- City in 1990, for example, there were nal behavior before it happens. 2,245 homicides. In 2014 there were In terms of economic stimulus alone, 333—a decrease of 85 percent. The drop no other government program has come in New York’s crime rate is the steepest close to the success of data-driven polic- in the nation, but crime has fallen at ing. In New York City, businesses that a historic rate nationwide as well—by had shunned previously drug-infested about 40 percent—since the early 1990s. areas now set up shop there, offering res- The greatest beneficiaries of these idents a choice in shopping and creating declining rates have been minorities. a demand for workers. Senior citizens Over 10,000 minority males alive today felt safe to go to the store or to the post in New York would be dead if the city’s office to pick up their Social Security homicide rate had remained at its early checks. Children could ride their bikes 1990s level. on city sidewalks without their moth- ers worrying that they would be shot. * * * But the crime victories of the last two decades, and the moral support on What is behind this historic crime which law and order depends, are now drop? A policing revolution that began in jeopardy thanks to the falsehoods of in New York and spread nationally, and the Black Lives Matter movement. that is now being threatened. Starting Police operating in inner-city neigh- in 1994, the top brass of the NYPD borhoods now find themselves routinely embraced the then-radical idea that the surrounded by cursing, jeering crowds police can actually prevent crime, not when they make a pedestrian stop or try just respond to it. They started gather- to arrest a suspect. Sometimes bottles ing and analyzing crime data on a daily and rocks are thrown. Bystanders stick and then hourly basis. They looked cell phones in the officers’ faces, dar- for patterns, and strategized on tactics ing them to proceed with their duties. to try to quell crime outbreaks as they Officers are worried about becoming were emerging. Equally important, they the next racist cop of the week and pos- held commanders accountable for crime sibly losing their livelihood thanks to an in their jurisdictions. Department incomplete cell phone video that inevita- leaders started meeting weekly with bly fails to show the antecedents to their precinct commanders to grill them on use of force. Officer use of force is never crime patterns on their watch. These pretty, but the public is clueless about 5

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how hard it is to subdue a suspect who is do something?” I met an elderly cancer determined to resist arrest. amputee in the Mount Hope section of As a result of the anti-cop campaign the Bronx who was terrified to go to her of the last two years and the resulting lobby mailbox because of the young push-back in the streets, officers in men trespassing there and selling drugs. urban areas are cutting back on precisely The only time she felt safe was when the the kind of policing that led to the crime police were there. “Please, Jesus,” she said decline of the 1990s and 2000s. Arrests to me, “send more police!” The irony is and summons are down, particularly that the police cannot respond to these for low-level offenses. Police officers heartfelt requests for order without gen- continue to rush to 911 calls when there erating the racially disproportionate sta- is already a victim. But when it comes tistics that will be used against them in to making discretionary stops—such as an ACLU or Justice Department lawsuit. getting out of their cars and questioning people hanging out on drug corners * * * at 1:00 a.m.—many cops worry that doing so could put their careers on the Unfortunately, when officers back line. Police officers are, after all, human. off in high crime neighborhoods, crime When they are repeatedly called racist shoots through the roof. Our country is for stopping and questioning suspicious in the midst of the first sustained violent individuals in high-crime areas, they crime spike in two decades. Murders will perform less of those stops. That is rose nearly 17 percent in the nation’s 50 not only understandable—in a sense, it largest cities in 2015, and it was in cities is how things should work. Policing is with large black populations where the political. If a powerful political block violence increased the most. Baltimore’s has denied the legitimacy of assertive per capita homicide rate last year was the policing, we will get less of it. highest in its history. Milwaukee had its On the other hand, the people deadliest year in a decade, with a 72 per- demanding that the police back off are cent increase in homicides. Homicides in by no means representative of the entire Cleveland increased 90 percent over the black community. Go to any police- previous year. Murders rose 83 percent neighborhood meeting in Harlem, the in Nashville, 54 percent in Washington, South Bronx, or South Central Los D.C., and 61 percent in Minneapolis. In Angeles, and you will invariably hear Chicago, where pedestrian stops are variants of the following: “We want the down by 90 percent, shootings were up dealers off the corner.” “You arrest them 80 percent through March 2016. and they’re back the next day.” “There I first identified the increase in vio- are kids hanging out on my stoop. Why lent crime in May 2015 and dubbed it can’t you arrest them for loitering?” “the Ferguson effect.” My diagnosis set “I smell weed in my hallway. Can’t you off a firestorm of controversy on the 6

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anti-cop Left and in criminology circles. 18.5 times higher than the chance of an Despite that furor, FBI Director James unarmed black getting killed by a cop. Comey confirmed the Ferguson effect in The favorite conceit of the Black a speech at the University of Chicago Lives Matter movement is, of course, Law School last October. Comey decried the racist white officer gunning down a the “chill wind” that had been blowing black man. According to available stud- through law enforcement over the previ- ies, it is a canard. A March 2015 Justice ous year, and attributed the sharp rise in Department report on the Philadelphia homicides and shootings to the campaign Police Department found that black against cops. Several days later, President and Hispanic officers were much more Obama had the temerity to rebuke likely than white officers to shoot blacks Comey, accusing him (while leaving him based on “threat misperception,” i.e., the unnamed) of “cherry-pick[ing] data” and incorrect belief that a civilian is armed. using “anecdotal evidence to drive policy A study by University of Pennsylvania [and] feed political agendas.” The idea criminologist Greg Ridgeway, formerly that President Obama knows more about acting director of the National Institute crime and policing than his FBI director of Justice, has found that black officers is of course ludicrous. But the President in the NYPD were 3.3 times more likely thought it necessary to take Comey down, to fire their weapons at shooting scenes because to recognize the connection than other officers present. The April between proactive policing and public 2015 death of drug dealer Freddie Gray safety undermines the entire premise of in Baltimore has been slotted into the the anti-cop Left: that the police oppress Black Lives Matter master narrative, even minority communities rather than bring though the three most consequential them surcease from disorder. officers in Gray’s arrest and transport are As crime rates continue to rise, the black. There is no evidence that a white overwhelming majority of victims are, drug dealer in Gray’s circumstances, with as usual, black—as are their assailants. a similar history of faking injuries, would But police officers are coming under have been treated any differently. attack as well. In August 2015, an officer We have been here before. In the in Birmingham, Alabama, was beaten 1960s and early 1970s, black and white unconscious by a convicted felon after a radicals directed hatred and occasional car stop. The suspect had grabbed the violence against the police. The differ- officer’s gun, as Michael Brown had tried ence today is that anti-cop ideology is to do in Ferguson, but the officer hesitated embraced at the highest reaches of the to use force against him for fear of being establishment: by the President, by his charged with racism. Such incidents will Attorney General, by college presidents, likely multiply as the media continues to by foundation heads, and by the press. amplify the Black Lives Matter activists’ The presidential candidates of one party poisonous slander against the nation’s are competing to see who can out-dema- police forces. gogue President Obama’s persistent race- The number of police officers killed in based calumnies against the criminal shootings more than doubled during the justice system, while those of the other first three months of 2016. In fact, officers party have not emphasized the issue as are at much greater they might have. risk from blacks I don’t know what than unarmed will end the current blacks are from frenzy against the the police. Over police. What I do know the last decade, an DID YOU KNOW? is that we are play- officer’s chance of Over one million students have signed up ing with fire, and if it getting killed by for Hillsdale College’s free online courses keeps spreading, it will since the first course was launched in the a black has been fall of 2011. To sign up for archived or new be hard to put out. ■ courses go to online.hillsdale.edu. 7

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